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A review by mepresley
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Díaz
dark
emotional
sad
5.0
I love this collection; every poem in it was wonderful. The only one I'd encountered before was the titular poem, which I read in a Norton Anthology of indigenous poets, and which is incredible.
Many of the poems focus on the speaker's meth-addicted brother, a war veteran who came back from combat ruined; most of these are located in II ("When My Brother was an Aztec," "My Brother at 3 AM," "How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs," "Downhill Triolets," "As a Consequence of My Brother Stealing All the Lightbulbs," "Formication," "Mariposa Nocturna," "Black Magic Brother," "A Brother Named Gethsemane," "Soiree Fantastique," "No More Cake Here," "The Elephants," "Why I Don't Mention Flowers When Conversations with My Brother Reach Uncomfortable Silences").
Others focus on the experiences of living on a reservation, the ongoing aftermath of colonization & genocide, of being an Indian among whites; most of these are located in I ("Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym of a Wild Indian Rezervation," "Hand-Me-Down Halloween," "Why I Hate Raisins," "The Gospel of Guy No-Horse," "A Woman with No Legs," "Reservation Mary," "Cloud Watching," "If Eve Side-Stealer & Mary Busted-Chest Ruled the World," "The Last Mojave Indian Barbie," "Reservation Grass," "Other Small Thundering," "Jimmy Eagle's Hot Cowboy Boots Blues," "The Facts of Art"). There's a fantastic poem about menstruation ("The Red Blues"), which is quite a feat in my opinion.
III is devoted partly to the speaker's lover ("Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love," "Dome Riddle," "Monday Aubade," "When the Beloved Asks, 'What Would You Do If You Woke Up and I Was a Shark?'"), but also contains some poems that are more mythical and imaginative in nature ("I Watch Her Eat the Apple," "Self-Portrait as a Chimera," "Lorca's Red Dresses," "Of Course She Looked Back," "Orange Alert," "Love Potion 2012," and "A Wild Life Zoo").
It's almost impossible for me to narrow down favorites, and would probably be easier--though hardly a worthwhile task--to list the poems that didn't blow me away.
Here are some favorite lines.
From "Cloud Watching":
We carry dimming lamps like god cages--
they help us to see that it is dark.
A tongue will wrestle its mouth to death and lose--
language is a cemetery.
From "Mercy Songs to Melancholy":
There's no such thing as gentle weeping.
Your gray guitar
is my sister--the hole in the chest
gives you both away.
From "Other Small Thundering":
A grannysack full of tigers wrestles in our chests--
they pace, stalking our hearts, building a jail
with their stripes. Each tail a fuse. Each eye a cinder.
Chest translates to bomb.
Bomb is a song--
the drum's shame-hollowed lament.
Burlap is no place for prayers or hands.
From "Prayers or Oubliettes":
The world has tired of tears.
We weep owls now. They live longer.
They know their way in the dark.
From "As a Consequence of My Brother Stealing All the Lightbulbs":
-Mom and Dad snap matchsticks between their tender teeth,
and I taste a green clock at the back of my throat.
The ticking is cold or sour or really a pickax.
Worry tastes so dirty when it's spread out like a banquet.
...
-When I visit, I hate searching for the door--usually
my brother's boot print on my dad's ribs, once it was
a hole in my mom's chest that changed her into a sad guitar
for three years--these are more like exits than doors.
They are difficult to get through.
From "A Brother Named Gethsemane":
...We are at
the gate shaking the gate clanging our cups against
the gate. This is no garden. This is my brother and I need a shovel
to love him.
From "Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love":
The buzz of blue burning ozone molecules--
a hypothalamus of cavalry trumpets--
call me to something--you
so willing to be crushed. ...
From "Self-Portrait as a Chimera":
...I am more cerulean
than the sea I swallow each day on the way to reaching out for him,
singing his name, wearing him like a dress made of debris.
From "I Lean Out the Window and She Nods Off in Bed, the Needle Gently Rocking on the Bedside Table":
She has always been more orchard than loved,
I, more bite than mouth.
From "Monday Aubade":
an ember more brilliant with each yellow breath,
glowing and dying and dying again,
dreaming a mesquite forest I once stripped to fire
before the sky went ash, undid its dark ribbons,
and bent to the ground, grief-ruined,
From "Love Potion 2012":
Taste hearts and turnips
in their throats Sky is cauldron
How they stir
this awful elixir Gods and bombs
zagging through the air like coins
down an empty well
Many of the poems focus on the speaker's meth-addicted brother, a war veteran who came back from combat ruined; most of these are located in II ("When My Brother was an Aztec," "My Brother at 3 AM," "How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs," "Downhill Triolets," "As a Consequence of My Brother Stealing All the Lightbulbs," "Formication," "Mariposa Nocturna," "Black Magic Brother," "A Brother Named Gethsemane," "Soiree Fantastique," "No More Cake Here," "The Elephants," "Why I Don't Mention Flowers When Conversations with My Brother Reach Uncomfortable Silences").
Others focus on the experiences of living on a reservation, the ongoing aftermath of colonization & genocide, of being an Indian among whites; most of these are located in I ("Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym of a Wild Indian Rezervation," "Hand-Me-Down Halloween," "Why I Hate Raisins," "The Gospel of Guy No-Horse," "A Woman with No Legs," "Reservation Mary," "Cloud Watching," "If Eve Side-Stealer & Mary Busted-Chest Ruled the World," "The Last Mojave Indian Barbie," "Reservation Grass," "Other Small Thundering," "Jimmy Eagle's Hot Cowboy Boots Blues," "The Facts of Art"). There's a fantastic poem about menstruation ("The Red Blues"), which is quite a feat in my opinion.
III is devoted partly to the speaker's lover ("Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love," "Dome Riddle," "Monday Aubade," "When the Beloved Asks, 'What Would You Do If You Woke Up and I Was a Shark?'"), but also contains some poems that are more mythical and imaginative in nature ("I Watch Her Eat the Apple," "Self-Portrait as a Chimera," "Lorca's Red Dresses," "Of Course She Looked Back," "Orange Alert," "Love Potion 2012," and "A Wild Life Zoo").
It's almost impossible for me to narrow down favorites, and would probably be easier--though hardly a worthwhile task--to list the poems that didn't blow me away.
Here are some favorite lines.
From "Cloud Watching":
We carry dimming lamps like god cages--
they help us to see that it is dark.
A tongue will wrestle its mouth to death and lose--
language is a cemetery.
From "Mercy Songs to Melancholy":
There's no such thing as gentle weeping.
Your gray guitar
is my sister--the hole in the chest
gives you both away.
From "Other Small Thundering":
A grannysack full of tigers wrestles in our chests--
they pace, stalking our hearts, building a jail
with their stripes. Each tail a fuse. Each eye a cinder.
Chest translates to bomb.
Bomb is a song--
the drum's shame-hollowed lament.
Burlap is no place for prayers or hands.
From "Prayers or Oubliettes":
The world has tired of tears.
We weep owls now. They live longer.
They know their way in the dark.
From "As a Consequence of My Brother Stealing All the Lightbulbs":
-Mom and Dad snap matchsticks between their tender teeth,
and I taste a green clock at the back of my throat.
The ticking is cold or sour or really a pickax.
Worry tastes so dirty when it's spread out like a banquet.
...
-When I visit, I hate searching for the door--usually
my brother's boot print on my dad's ribs, once it was
a hole in my mom's chest that changed her into a sad guitar
for three years--these are more like exits than doors.
They are difficult to get through.
From "A Brother Named Gethsemane":
...We are at
the gate shaking the gate clanging our cups against
the gate. This is no garden. This is my brother and I need a shovel
to love him.
From "Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love":
The buzz of blue burning ozone molecules--
a hypothalamus of cavalry trumpets--
call me to something--you
so willing to be crushed. ...
From "Self-Portrait as a Chimera":
...I am more cerulean
than the sea I swallow each day on the way to reaching out for him,
singing his name, wearing him like a dress made of debris.
From "I Lean Out the Window and She Nods Off in Bed, the Needle Gently Rocking on the Bedside Table":
She has always been more orchard than loved,
I, more bite than mouth.
From "Monday Aubade":
an ember more brilliant with each yellow breath,
glowing and dying and dying again,
dreaming a mesquite forest I once stripped to fire
before the sky went ash, undid its dark ribbons,
and bent to the ground, grief-ruined,
From "Love Potion 2012":
Taste hearts and turnips
in their throats Sky is cauldron
How they stir
this awful elixir Gods and bombs
zagging through the air like coins
down an empty well